Comment

The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck

a Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life
Oct 16, 2018ryankegley rated this title 3 out of 5 stars
I’d never heard of Mark Manson, or his blog, before seeing this book. I can’t recall if it came up in my Goodreads feed, or I spied it at Half-Price Books first. In any case, the library had a copy, so I picked it up. “The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck” is not about not giving a fuck. Manson is not a nihilist, and this isn’t some kiss-off to society. A more accurate title might be “Choosing Your Fucks Wisely.” This brief (I hesitate to use the term) “self-help” book is designed to help the reader recognize what kind of fucks they’re giving, determine whether those fucks are harmful, and, if they are, how to create new fucks to care about. In this context, “fucks” are values, and Manson’s point is that many of us have unhealthy values that only serve to make us miserable. If we can let go of those values (usually superficial ones) and replace them with healthy ones, we can begin to live rich, fulfilling lives. Only by letting go of entitlement, by adopting values that go beyond serving ourselves, ones that are simple, immediate, controllable, and tolerant of the chaotic world around us, can we truly find peace and happiness, and a life full of purpose and meaning. As Charles Bukowski once wrote, “We’re all going to die, all of us. What a circus! That alone should make us love each other, but it doesn’t. We are terrorized and flattened by life’s trivialities; we are eaten up by nothing.” We don’t have to live that way. We can choose a better path. Each of us has the power to change — if we want it badly enough. My copy says “Over Two Million Copies Sold” on the cover. If every reader replaced one self-serving value with an unselfish one we’d be on our way to having two million fewer assholes in the world. That sounds like a pretty good start to me.